Research tools for measuring social norms

09 February 2017

Sephy Valuks

At a meeting on social norms around partner violence, researchers compared tools for social norms change and measurement.

A new Learning Group on Social Norms and Gender-based Violence was launched in 2016 by the Gender, Violence and Health Centre (GVHC) at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The group held the meeting in Baltimore, USA, in collaboration with STRIVE.

Social norms are behavioural rules shared by people in a given society or group; they define what is considered “normal” and appropriate behaviour for that group. Work on attitudes and beliefs focus on the individual, but social norms operate – and can be tackled – at the group level. This approach underpins STRIVE’s intervention studies: